Earthquakes may be unpredictable — but they are also inevitable. Here are some tips to help you get ready before the next one hits.

The Cascadia fault last ruptured in January 1700, triggering a magnitude-9 earthquake and a massive tsunami that wiped out Native American villages along the coast and was powerful enough to cross the Pacific Ocean and caused damage in samurai-era villages along the coast of Japan.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates a 12 to 15 percent chance that the Cascadia fault will rupture again in the next 50 years, though other researchers put the odds as high as 30 percent.

One earthquake can trigger others on nearby faults.

But John Vidale, former director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington, said there’s little danger a quake on a fault off the coast of Mexico would trigger a quake off the Pacific Northwest.